


Beginnings and Endings

by LaceKyoko1138



Series: Fates' Teenagers [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: (mentioned) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Image, Death in the Family, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Family, Fat Shaming, Gen, I'm just being safe with the tags tbh, Mortality, Teen Angst, this probably isn't nearly as bad as the tags would have you believe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 20:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17835635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaceKyoko1138/pseuds/LaceKyoko1138
Summary: Life is cyclical. We often find ourselves in revisited moments, senses of déjà vu. Beginnings lead to endings, but endings give rebirth to new beginnings, and thus there are new endings. Corrin and Azura learn this lesson on their first day of school.





	Beginnings and Endings

**Author's Note:**

> This is an introductory passage for my Fire Emblem Fates High School AU. If you read _Bedroom Eyes_ then you should read this to give better context to Corrin's character, and to have an idea of where I'm going with this. I'll be working on this series every now and again, as I really should be working on _The Koto Player_ and _Carbohydrate Father_. 
> 
> This piece is a bit morbid. If you've read some of my other works, then you know this isn't something I necessarily shy away from. I like to be realistic with my stories. Sometimes. At the very least, I like dealing with hard subjects.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

Corrin sighed for what was probably the sixteenth time that day. She tugged at her sweater uncomfortably, staring at herself in the full length mirror. Why did she want that again? Modeling cute dresses and outfits? Pah, as if. She didn’t feel cute in the crop top sweater and leggings her cousin Azura had picked out. Her thick thighs, round tummy, bulbous breasts… Don’t get her started on that double chin. No, Corrin did not feel cute in that moment.

But it was the first day of school, senior year, and she was determined to at least be passable.

Corrin had always been a bit on the hefty side. Ever since she was born really. She was a chunky eight pound baby, fairly tall at twenty inches, and born with a full head of black hair. Her mother loved her dearly, her beloved baby girl, father unknown to Corrin, a man who Noped ™ out of there when Mikoto confronted him about the positive pregnancy test. Mikoto was 21, fresh out of college, and it was a struggle, but eventually when Corrin was two, she met a man named Sumeragi, who took her in and loved her as if they had been fated to be together always. Sumeragi’s wife Ikona had passed around the time Corrin had been born, and all that pain Sumeragi had once felt turned into bliss. He would always love Ikona, but Mikoto was his love alive.

Sumeragi was...considerably older than Mikoto, which would have probably bothered Mikoto’s parents, but they didn’t matter because they were dead, and Mikoto was a college graduate with a baby to feed. She wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She did love Sumeragi, but meeting him was almost too fortuitous. But not only was she a young mother to her own child; she would also prove to be a stepmother to Sumeragi’s four other children from his previous marriage. The two were hitched after a year of dating, and the children were elated. They had a new mom and a new baby sister.

Corrin knew no better. Though she knew her siblings and father were not hers blood related, she loved them regardless.

But this brings the story back to Corrin’s current predicament: she was always hefty. Mikoto herself had been a curvy woman, and Corrin had always found her own mother beautiful, but she couldn’t find that beauty in herself. She joked in her head that she took after her father, some unknown man she would never know. Mikoto never spoke of him.

It never really bothered her as a small child. She may have questioned once or twice why Ryoma was so athletic and built, why Hinoka was lithe like a panther, why Takumi, though stockier than Ryoma, was muscular, and why Sakura was so petite, but it hadn’t really been a problem until she started school.

She was picked on. A lot. Especially by boys. Some girls were snotty, but for the most part they didn’t really bug Corrin about her weight. But the boys called her awful names, they were utterly relentless, and on many occasions, Corrin came home crying. Mikoto would soothe her and say she was absolutely beautiful, that size truly didn’t matter, and while it was certainly a bandage for Corrin’s wounded pride, it didn’t fix the crux of the problem. Mikoto had talked to the teachers, and though the teachers would punish and try to teach the bullies that it wasn’t right to treat Corrin in such a way, they still did it. So Corrin unfortunately grew up very insecure about her size.

However, Corrin still managed to keep up with the other students when it came to PE and fitness. Though she lost little weight, she still was powerful. She lacked speed, but the girl had muscle underneath the fat, and Corrin did find some comfort in that. She could out throw any of the boys, and once when she got into her first, but not last, fist fight, she threw a punch so hard the boy went crying to the teacher. Corrin claimed self defense (it truly was), and she had a minimal punishment. Ten minutes standing by the fence during recess was nothing compared to the fact that she gave a bully a bloody nose. Whoops.

But giving the occasional bully a bloody nose didn’t make Corrin feel better in this moment. It was senior year. She was supposed to be beautiful...right?

But Corrin didn’t have time to ponder her beauty, inner or outer, and heard Mikoto call for her from downstairs. “Honey, breakfast is ready!”

Corrin grimaced. She didn’t want to eat. She knew that not eating would only do her harm, and she didn’t want to be sent to a rehabilitation center again for an eating disorder she didn’t have. She just sighed again and grabbed her shoes and backpack, and headed downstairs.

Ryoma was a sophomore in college and was already downstairs helping Mikoto serve breakfast. His classes started next week, but the university was local so he opted to stay home with his family. Mikoto had insisted he didn’t need to, but Ryoma wanted to be there for her. There needed to be a man of the house, he had said, and Mikoto laughed, but she accepted his offer. Ryoma had always been more sensitive to his family’s needs than he let on.

Hinoka had come out of the downstairs bathroom, hair still disheveled. She was a freshman in college, and despite what she claimed, she was trying to pull off that ‘too cool for school’ look. Takumi, already at the table, and a junior in high school, picked on her for having a crush on a buxom beauty in her class, and Hinoka put him in a chokehold. Ryoma pulled her off him and chastised the younger brother for picking on their gay sister. Hinoka floundered, stuttering, trying to deny that, but everyone just laughed. There wasn’t anything wrong with that in their eyes. Hinoka needed to get over the shyness and just ask the girl out.

Sakura had been sitting next to Takumi and was a bit perturbed by the morning antics, but this wasn’t anything new. She smiled gently and put some strawberry jam on her toast. She was a sophomore in high school and wanted the day to go smoothly.

Corrin was happy to have this time with her family. Suddenly, her problems didn’t seem so bad.

The five siblings ate breakfast, varying things from toast to cereal to a hearty helping of waffles thanks to the Pokémon waffle maker Takumi got for Christmas last year. They joked and jibed and Mikoto smiled at her happy little family. Then, her cell phone rang. She excused herself to take the call.

Little did the family realize that this would be the most interesting first day of school they’d ever have.

**~**

Azura looked like she had seen utter hell. In truth, she did. Her mother’s health had been bad ever since she could remember. Gestational diabetes turned Type 2. It was unfair but Arete had always been good about taking care of herself and her daughter.

But no matter how well someone took care of themself, age took its toll. Arete was on an insulin pump after years of just taking her blood sugar and eating carefully, but even the pump couldn’t save her life. She had slipped into a diabetic coma, and the doctors found there weren’t good prospects of her survival.

Azura wasn’t of age yet, so she couldn’t be her mother’s decision maker in times like this. She couldn’t sign a DNR herself, but it seemed Arete had taken that thought into account and had signed one herself years prior. Azura was heartbroken when the doctors said that Arete’s wishes were to die. She did leave a will, but it did little for Azura. What little money Arete had went to her daughter, she couldn’t keep the apartment the two lived in, but she did get to keep her car. Azura had always been a fiarly independent girl, but now an orphan, independence was her only salvation.

Except in the figure of Mikoto, who had come at once when she was called to say her sister was dying. Mikoto immediately embraced Azura, trying to comfort the girl, and Azura let Mikoto have her way. If anything, Azura knew the attempt comforted Mikoto more than it did Azura. The entire Shirasagi family was there, all five siblings, but Azura felt so utterly alone. She looked to Corrin, who understood and pulled her mother off the skinny girl with hair too long and eyes too sad.

“Azura...”

Azura shook her head. “Please don’t say you’re sorry for my loss. I know she was your aunt as well as my mother, but nothing you say will bring her back.” It was mighty blunt, but perhaps this was how Azura could deal with it. Immediate acceptance… Azura sounded like she had known this would happen for some time now. But it only made sense. It wouldn’t do to mourn someone who was fated to die the moment she birthed her daughter, developing an incurable disease. It hurt, but that was how Azura saw it.

That being said, when the time came, the doctors pulled the plugs, and Arete flatlined. For a moment, she seemed to twitch, but the doctors said this was just her body’s last attempt for survival, though it would do little. Azura saw the moment her mother had passed and it felt surreal. Unreal even.

One day, she and her cousin and aunt and everyone else would be worm food, or ashes, or rotting corpses on a riverbank, or any other multitude of ways a body could be disposed of, and it made Azura incredibly numb.

“Come on, Azura. I will make arrangements for the funeral. Arete left me that much power. You can stay with us, okay?” Mikoto gently said. Azura merely nodded and followed the family of six out.

“It’s… It’s really over, isn’t it?” she said quietly, but no one seemed to hear her. She was alone, and she would be alone when she died, just like her mother.

Because when you’re dead, no one is there for you. No one knows what it is like to die until they do die, and even then, those who meet their maker in sudden ways don’t even get that luxury. Or perhaps not knowing you’re about to die is the true blessing. In any case, Azura, in that very moment, was afraid. What would her own death be like? She didn’t want to find out.

So she decided in that moment, as Mikoto started the engine to the family van, that she would live for herself, in whatever way she deemed fit. She would deal with her grief however she needed to, but until the overwhelming sense of sadness overtook her senses, she would carry on somehow. That was all she could do as a 17 year old.


End file.
